What do the scriptures say about the Holy Spirit’s contact with married couples during intimacy?

If you are asking if the Holy Spirit is actually involved in the act of intimacy in some physical way, I would say there is not one scripture which would lead us to believe that He is. We need to remember that the intimacy between a husband and a wife is “between the man and the woman,” period. When God created the man and the woman He said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28, NKJV). In other words, He gave them the ability to PROCREATE through the act of sexual intimacy. We read nothing here of the Holy Spirit (or of God the Father or God the Son) being directly involved in some physical way in this act of procreation.

I should mention that the “act of marriage” (sexual intimacy) is not just for procreation, but also for pleasure. We have one book of the Bible (i.e. Solomon’s Song) that goes into great detail describing the physical pleasure between a husband and a wife. God created man and woman with the desire for sexual intimacy and the ability to pleasure one another. If they are both Christians, they have the Holy Spirit living in them, but the desire comes from a mutual love and attraction to one another and not from the Holy Spirit. Thus the Holy Spirit does not have to put the desire in them; it comes naturally.

Having said that, there may be times when the Holy Spirit would lead a man and a woman to “refrain from sexual intimacy.” We read of this in 1st Corinthians 7:5, “Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may GIVE YOURSELVES TO FASTING AND PRAYER; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” There are times when a Christian couple may be seeking the Lord’s Mind for guidance and the Spirit would then impress upon them the need to “fast and pray”; to DENY THEMSELVES while they PRAY FOR THE LORD’S WILL to be revealed to them. Refraining from sexual intimacy is obviously included in this act of denying themselves.

Before we close, we all know that we are living in a world where men and women have corrupted all that God has created, and this is especially true when it comes to sex. Thus we have a wicked PERVERSION of what God established in the form of fornication (sex before marriage), adultery (sex with someone other than your spouse), homosexuality (sex with someone of the same gender), sadism (injuring someone during sex) and beastiality (sex with animals). If you are saved the Holy Spirit would be grieved (see Ephesians 4:30) if you were involved in any one of these acts. 1st Corinthians 6:18-20 is quite clear on this point: “Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (NASB).

Because of the sexual perversions just mentioned, some Christians tend to look upon sex as “dirty,” even between a Christian husband and wife. But we have seen that God, from the very beginning, created them for the act of intimacy, not only for procreation but for pleasure. Hebrews 4:4 declares, “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” Within the holy institution of marriage sexual intimacy is “undefiled.” And we can be sure that the Holy Spirit, though not involved in the act itself, is pleased to see a godly man and woman enjoying each other as God intended them to do. (308.2) (DO)